News Stories

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

forget stocks, buy commodity, buy real estate, get something tangible.

Doesn't create value though. You buy a piece of land, a year from now, it's still just going to be a piece of land. I buy a factory, a year from now it will have made hundreds of commodities, each sold at a profit. Of course it's difficult to buy a whole factory, so most people just buy a share of it...

The other problem with commodities is that if you're trying to actually make money off them (IE speculate), then you're basically playing the "who's the bigger fool" game. You can make money off it, sure, but I think the chances are that you're just going to get caught up in one of the many speculative bubbles that happen every 10 years or so and lose everything.

Better to buy something because it makes money, and you think it will be making more money in the future. Inevitably stock prices end out following how well a company is doing after all...

I don't know, I feel like making money off of speculating or day trading is ethically no better then gambling. In both cases you're making money by doing nothing productive, and in both cases it's very easy to get duped by better players.

And in stock trading, the house always wins. How much are your underwriting costs guys?

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Sadly, it's a wrenching time to be a young jobseeker.

I can testify to that. I don't even get called to interviews, let alone get given a job. My mom's basement is getting a bit dull...

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I can testify to that. I don't even get called to interviews, let alone get given a job. My mom's basement is getting a bit dull...

Try starting your own business.

[GDB]

Good luck getting a loan to do that.

[Kagayaki]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8...-of-light.html

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the international group of researchers, said that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done.
"We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing," he said. "We now want colleagues to check them independently."

If they didn't somehow screw up their measurements, this finding would be completely gelbananas.

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Try starting your own business.

If I knew what, I'd be already doing it. I don't know how to even start a business, I've never had any significant kind of job. I know how to do engineering mathematics, and write eloquent forum posts, not much else.

It really is pretty bad here, only 1 of my friends managed to get a decent job after college. Another managed to get one through family connections. And I know 3 or 4 others who are doing Masters. The rest are unemployed, like me, or working at Dominoes. All college educated.

Would you like me to talk about Thermodynamics while you wait for your order? I can analyse your car's fuel efficiency if you like...

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Kagayaki

completely gelbananas.

Yeah, I find it hard to read any news about CERN without thinking of something sinister now.

[Ithekro]

Time travel isn't what I would go for. Practical faster than light travel would be the angle of practical uses to get us to other worlds and actually remove our "limited" resources problem if we can get materials from other worlds in a practical and economic fashion.

[Rahan]

They probably screwed up somewhere.
In this article, they sound super confident, but in the french articles I have read, they said that they were checking their measurements since the early results in march, and since they haven't found anything wrong yet and that the news was starting to leak, they published it.

Well, there was not much emphasis on the second part, but it's not a very good sign for something that important.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

If I knew what, I'd be already doing it. I don't know how to even start a business, I've never had any significant kind of job. I know how to do engineering mathematics, and write eloquent forum posts, not much else.

It really is pretty bad here, only 1 of my friends managed to get a decent job after college. Another managed to get one through family connections. And I know 3 or 4 others who are doing Masters. The rest are unemployed, like me, or working at Dominoes. All college educated.

Would you like me to talk about Thermodynamics while you wait for your order? I can analyse your car's fuel efficiency if you like...

Software developer? My employer's always looking for some. No idea what the market's like in Ireland, though.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

I can testify to that. I don't even get called to interviews, let alone get given a job. My mom's basement is getting a bit dull...

You know, they *used* to at least say, "we got your resume, thanks, we'll let you know if anything opens up". Now its just silence - for all you know their inbox is a shredder. Very poor manners. Also... it gets pretty weird competing with my own son for a job opening (these days, I do lots of different things, "multiple revenue streams" is the nice word for it). In my case, I'm 50-something and "overqualified" much of the time. Also being self-employed or unemployed currently immediately zeroes your chances. Congress is introducing a bill to ban the practice of "unemployed need not apply" but yeah...
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know...t-apply/10736/
http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/16/news...pply/index.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/bu...m-jobless.html

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Try starting your own business.

Good luck with that (at least in the US). Banks aren't lending, Large Corp. dominate nearly every "business space", and clients don't want you without ridiculous requirements that only Large Corp. can satisfy. If I were wearing a tin foil hat, I'd say its a conscious concerted effort to leave people no choice but be a serf for the Machine. I'm helping my son start his business but, its being done on a shoestring, our shoestring :P

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Software developer? My employer's always looking for some. No idea what the market's like in Ireland, though.

Heh, there are actually a lot of openings for that. But they all require 2-3 years of experience working whatever it is they're doing. Plus, I studied Engineering, and my programming knowledge is... limited.

Originally Posted by Vexx

You know, they *used* to at least say, "we got your resume, thanks, we'll let you know if anything opens up". Now its just silence - for all you know their inbox is a shredder. Very poor manners.

About a tenth of my applications sending me back a reply.

It makes it all feel rather futile. It's easy to become Nihilistic in those circumstances.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Heh, there are actually a lot of openings for that. But they all require 2-3 years of experience working whatever it is they're doing. Plus, I studied Engineering, and my programming knowledge is... limited.

Bit of a problem. Again, I don't know the Irish situation, but in France, we've got programs that let you alternate study and work. They're advantageous for the enterprises because they get a cheap worker and/or tax credits. Don't you have things like that? Of course, there's always the risk of the enterprise abusing the system and just using new interns instead of offering a permanent position to the one they allegedly trained.

[Bri]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

If I knew what, I'd be already doing it. I don't know how to even start a business, I've never had any significant kind of job. I know how to do engineering mathematics, and write eloquent forum posts, not much else.

It really is pretty bad here, only 1 of my friends managed to get a decent job after college. Another managed to get one through family connections. And I know 3 or 4 others who are doing Masters. The rest are unemployed, like me, or working at Dominoes. All college educated.

Would you like me to talk about Thermodynamics while you wait for your order? I can analyse your car's fuel efficiency if you like...

Isn't there like a large shortage of engineers in Northern Europe? I saw news reports that in countries like Germany, the UK, Holland etc. they can't fill job openings.

[synaesthetic]

That is gratifying to hear.

[Ithekro]

I see relations with Iran are peachy as normal.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/s...p0hop6fnhCIEM4

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by Bri

Isn't there like a large shortage of engineers in Northern Europe? I saw news reports that in countries like Germany, the UK, Holland etc. they can't fill job openings.

That's what they say. I was hoping not to have to leave Ireland, at least in the short term. Moving away costs money.

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

I see relations with Iran are peachy as normal.
*snip*

And John Bolton criticizes the USA for not taking action...

John Bolton.

The neocon assward that Bush threw at the UN as an insult to the rest of the world? Gee what a relevant guy.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Surely the best solution is to buy a bunch of decent stocks, that will have a good long term return year on year (5-10% and above would be good) and just sit on them. Keep an eye on the businesses, and if you see they have problems, minimise your exposure. A day to day loss of 4% isn't particularly important when you know the fundamentals of a business is sound.

Buying and selling loads of stocks is just a fast way to stack up underwriting fees.

That said, I haven't invested before, due to not having the cash to do it, so perhaps I'm missing something.

Scalping does work. Especially in Forex where it is bloody volatile.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

The rest of this year is probably toast, though we won't know for certain until third-quarter results start coming out in the next few weeks to a month. Certain tech stocks might actually be worth looking into — those that deal with servers and enterprise services, for example, IBM.

Just wait for Steve Jobs to die then short Apple all the way down.

Personally I have never touched Honeywell, but I believe it is good enough as a tech stock to buy. IBM is probably a nice short term place to put your money, but with the advent of cloud computing Google might end up being a better choice; though I don't know when there will be a sell-off for us to buy.

Though I am looking forward to HP being the uke in a M&A plan.

The market will fix itself, if the Fed can fix stubborn unemployment, which is what the latest "twist" is supposed to be about.

I'm not crossing my fingers.

The Fed has problems fixing the stubborn unemployment is because big corp are too used to outsourcing their jobs overseas, which is made of cheaper labour and thus higher revenue.

And it isn't helping that the government isn't encouraging enterprise in potential sectors like renewable energy, cloud computing and electronic distribution and transaction. They seemed more focus on helping their Big Corp political allies in generating more revenue rather than diversifying the market.

The US of A is built on a culture of brand, which many people can use it to capitalise on, and thus it creates an easy market for those who do their homework and are willing to make mistakes. Donald Trump can tell you all about it in his books, but people just don't like to listen to "a real estate mogul cheating on his people" - sometimes the people you don't like dish out good advice.

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

forget stocks, buy commodity, buy real estate, get something tangible.

If you touch real estate, get ready to rent it out. Get those "apartment buildings" with lots of rooms so you can readily rent it out at low prices.

With regards to commodities, 5 minutes ago as of this post it is taking a dive. CNOOC should be a good buy.....I am checking after I get back from the optometrist.

if you understand it, it has better odds and better tax rates.

True. Even in trading/investing, it is good to have a couple of stocks to focus on and know at the back of your hand, more likely not to make a mistake.

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Sadly, it's a wrenching time to be a young jobseeker.

Tell me about it. Jobhunting has never been more annoying and tiring.

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Mutual funds are supposed to be the solution for schmucks like me... but they just seem to be able to bleed more slowly. I should have kept my Canadian (1:.75) and Japanese (1:120) money piles and moved stocks to currency speculation during the Bush administration, meh.

The ''strenght'' of the Canadian Dollard isn't helping much thoses like I than their work is related to tourism, and with the current economy... lets just say than since 2001, it's just going slowly downer and downer.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

The ''strenght'' of the Canadian Dollard isn't helping much thoses like I than their work is related to tourism, and with the current economy... lets just say than since 2001, it's just going slowly downer and downer.

Statistics show that you Canucks are still pretty confident about your economy, whereas your businessmen are pretty uncertain (maybe due to the border with US?).

As for the USDCAD exchange rate, you are right about it going down from 1.3 to 1.0 in a few years due to the lack of demand of the CAD, but I am more inclined to think that the Yanks are not really importing much from everywhere else, so their demand for foreign goods actually affected world currencies as an overall (USDSGD used to be 1.4, but now it is 1.2).